The chemical company reported first-quarter earnings on April 19 of $1.49 billion, or $1.57 a share, up from year-earlier earnings of $1.43 billion, or $1.52.

"Meetings with DuPont's CEO reaffirmed our belief that the company's diverse and defensible portfolio (36% of earnings from recession-proof ag, nutrition and industrial biosciences) deserves to trade at premium to the S&P versus its current 8% discount (12.3x '12E EPS vs 13.4x)," Deutsche Bank analysts wrote in a report Tuesday.